Bethany UCC

This week, Pastor Vince preached on Psalm 8 and physicist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's idea that “we are creatures of matter who long to matter”. Confronting free will, nihilism and teenage trollery, his sermon encourages us to sit in the discomfort of contradicting truths and to emerge choosing whatever story feels most beautiful to us.

This week, Pastor Vince continued our “Unspeakable” theme for Lent by recounting his recent visit to the Musuem of Memory and Human rights in Chile. Centering Mark 15-: 33-39, he identifies despair as a mark of our faith.

We were glad to welcome longtime Bethany member Alaina Hoffman to the pulpit this weekend. In her sermon, she shares a heartfelt testimony of her recent time spent in Minnesota, where she provided support against the ongoing chaos spawned by ICE raids. Preaching on Mark 3:1 - 6, her sermon centers the sacred power of anger, and how that anger can be used to confront harm.

Pastor Rebecca is a rank beginner. Among other things, at guitar. But not for the first time. In the final week of our Beginner's Mind series, she preached on John 3:1-7 and practice after the novelty has worn off, when natural aptitude and gifts run out, and church as a place to practice what we're not good at. And then she played guitar. Badly.

To look with a beginner's mind includes the risk and possibility of awe. Pastor Rebecca's sermon this week is all about that experience: a moment that can be uplifting or devastating but either way, transformational.

On Sunday morning, Jan 11th, we started worship by staring at the front of our bulletins, acting like absolute newbies.  Together we asked: What's going on in this picture? What do you see that makes you say that? What more can you find?The questions come to us from Visual Thinking Strategies, by way of some people doing great work on the value of uncertainty in medicine and what's possible when doctors really pay attention to the person in front of them.In her sermon (from Luke 13), Pastor Rebecca said God has given us infinite pictures to try and really look at: Pictures of the world as God dreams it. Likenesses of what They themselves are like. Images of how They will save us. Listen with us to the image Jesus offered in his parable about decisive landowner and a gardener who had eyes of love and resources to waste. *More on “uncertainty in medicine” from The Nocturnists and Alexa Mille here

Pastor Rebecca started the year with Jesus' teaching in Matthew 18: 1-5 that in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, we've got to change and become like little kids — after everything we've learned and accomplished??? But the unself-conscious humility of children is, apparently, where it's at. 

There were a lot of bells and whistles, and musicians, and candles, and decorations, and kids, and people, and shadow puppets* on Christmas Eve but the story is always the same: it's about God's embarrassing attachment to us, and the unnecessary lengths they'll go to, out of love.

This week, Pastor Rebecca preached on Psalm 130, which isn't a reading you typically hear on the 4th Sunday of Advent. But, with our worship this month centered on Keeping Watch, this reading reminds us that God is listening and God is on the way, as sure as the morning is coming.

In his sermon this week, Vince grapples with the privilege of being reliable, and what it means to let go of control and really wait on God.

On Sun, Dec 7, Pastor Rebecca preached about the obligations we may incur by keeping watch. She preached on Deuteronomy 22: 1 - 4 and referenced the poem Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman. We hope you enjoy!

Many of us in Chicago have spent the last two months on high alert, on watch for danger. But what is it we're watching for in Advent? What is the vigilance that saves us?

In which we end and celebrate our stewardship campaign and November series, both called Free-for-All with a litany of thanksgiving from Bethanian Dave Scott, and some interstitial preaching from Pastor Rebecca from Ephesians 3. You'll also hear the laughter, cheers, and noisemakers from the congregation. It was truly a free-for-all to end all free-for-all's.

Using Genesis 1 and the Exodus story, as well as a heavy dose of inspiration from the Neo-Futurists and Rev Will Bouvel, Pastor Rebecca preaches our first free-for-all sermon — which really lived up to its name.

Does Vince believe in levitation? He wants to! Preaching on Matthew 19: 16-26, his sermon asks: what value is there in believing in the impossible?

Perfect pitch is rare (although maybe not as rare as you've heard…), but relative pitch is all you need, and widely available. Using a passage from Psalm 119, and a poem she worried was too sexy for worship, Pastor Rebecca preached that *spiritually* the best any of us can do is relative: listening to God, again and again, reminding us of the tonic, the root chord, “do ti do.” That's home. And then we can live in relationship to that. Returning to it as often as we need. Which is all the time.

William Billings' song AFRICA was a greatest hit of the 18th Century. A banger. It's a shapenote song, aka Sacred Harp, aka “the heavy metal of the pre-Civil War era”. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it is one of Pastor Rebecca's heart songs; just one of the many, diverse ways God has given us to sing about Their faithfulness.

Pastor Rebecca knew she was walking a fine line by comparing our relationship with God to our animals' relationship with us. But the longer she thought about it, the more it seemed worth considering…

 Pastor Vince is basic...but so is everyone else! We are merely human- that's the bad news. The good news is: merely human means being filled with the glory of God.

Do you remember the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and asked what he'd need to do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus told him: you know, just sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and follow me? And then how he went away sad?This sermon is not about that.

We're so glad Pastor Vince is back with us and feeling better! Starting with a humorous anecdote, his sermon preaches on the nature of suffering, and how as Christians, we find belonging when we can listen and respond to it.

After a month of Red Flags, Pastor Rebecca finally preached about green flags (!) — the ones we need and the ones we have to offer, as a church.

Rev Dr. Katie Hays brought us greetings from Galileo Church (a Disciples congregation on the outskirts of Fort Worth, Texas) and a dispatch from “the badlands,” preaching that in the Gospel reading (Luke 9:57-62), Jesus waved his own red flags.

As part of “Red Flags” worship theme for August, Pastor Rebecca's sermon this week centered on regret: the regret of a lost love, the regret of electing the wrong leader, and even the regrets of God themself. Focusing on 1st Samuel and an anecdote about time travel, she reminds us that the only path is forward.

Pastor Rebecca, in an attempt to contextualize the book of Daniel, threw some unexpected shade against the musical Hamilton.... Mostly, though, her sermon was about the good news that the empires of this world are always and ever teetering on the edge of collapse.

Anyone who knows former student pastor and Bethany member Kelli Manning might be surprised to know that she was once hugely self-conscious. Well, she didn't manage, understand, or grow through it on her own. It required caring and collective curiosity. Preaching from Numbers 22, she encouraged us likewise to journey together:"When people ignore or don't know to look for repeated warning signs...they keep walking on a dangerously lonely path. Seeing the warning signs is one thing, but allowing someone else to help navigate them is transformational."

Pastor Vince apologizes right at the start of this sermon for biting off more than he can chew research wise (Epistemology! Geology!) By the end, he shares an invitation to ground ourselves in the certainty of God's power and care.

Preaching on the story of the shipwreck in Acts 27, Pastor Vince describes baptism as a means of confronting the powers of evil, choosing sides and facing our own mortality.

Pastor Vince's sermon this week shares that God doesn't ask us for extravagant gestures. Rather, they ask that we do what little we can and trust God to make more of it than we can imagine.

Pastor Rebecca's sermon centers the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, which was organized in 1987 with an absolutely singular mission: direct action to end the AIDS crisis. In the face of neglect, negligence, indifference, they behaved badly to save lives — a move that may sound familiar from stories about Jesus.

Examining Psalm 9 and 2 Samuel, Pastor Rebecca delivers a sermon on doing the right thing even when your actions seem fruitless.

Reflecting on her days at summer camp, Pastor Rebecca's sermon this week describes the experience of being changed as a result of getting "swept up" in a movement.

In his sermon last week, Pastor Vince introduced our new worship theme of "Act Up" with a sermon describing the ways God calls us to resist creatively.

In his sermon this week, student pastor Xander King shares the call to proclaim abundance against narratives of scarcity.

In his sermon this week, Pastor Vince discusses false sanctuary vs. real sanctuary. He encourages us to embrace the real sanctuary of God's love and care, rather than give in to the false sanctuary of familiarity, despair and anger.

We're focusing on Disability Justice this month at Bethany. In her sermon this week, Pastor Rebecca reflects on the ways churches and communities often ask 'how can you fit into how we do things' rather than asking 'how can we do things in ways that include the most people possible?'

In her last sermon as Bethany student pastor, Kelli Manning delivered a sermon asking: what does sanctuary look like when we are surrounded by the wilderness? Can Sanctuary and Wilderness coexist?

Citing the Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, student pastor Xander King invites us to consider our church and it's community as verbs rather than nouns, to imagine them as living, changing things.

In her Easter sermon this week, Pastor Rebecca shares how God reveals much more than we could know or imagine on our own.

"This is not a sermon about what you should do but it is a sermon about what can happen. How, without much planning, or even the skills you think you need, you can end up following Jesus just one step at a time. A sermon about what could happen when God speaks through you and you draw the attention of the Empire. So, I guess, it's a warning. That if you give up everything, you'll have nothing left, except the way of love."-Pastor Rebecca

In his sermon this week, Pastor Vince shares the controversial opinion that we aren't required to do all that we can do.

In her sermon this week, Pastor Rebecca preached on releasing control. She cites the poem "Welcoming Prayer" by Mary Mrozowski.

Pastor Vince shared the story of St. Francis' conversion, how he felt compelled to give up even his clothes to show his devotion to God. Vince doesn't think God requires all of that from us, but rather that we be "radically available" should the moment come.

In her sermon this week, Pastor Rebeccas shares the story of a friend asking her to help discard some spooky items. In doing so, she tells a story of loss, change and knowing when to let go.

On our first Sunday of Lent, Kelli explored the theme of less by acknowledging the many hats and labels we wear and inviting us to look underneath them all.

In the first sermon of our "Lent of Less" theme, Pastor Vince leads the congregation in burying our alleluias and delivers a sermon reminding us there are seasons for nuance, and seasons to speak plainly.

As part of our kids centered worship theme for February, Pastor Vince interactively tells the story of the Good Samaritan (with the help of a few props).

In the first sermon of our "Playing With Fire" worship theme, things got messy (in a good way)! Listen to this interactive sermon from Pastor Rebecca, with a little help from the kids in our congregation.

Ok, so maybe Pastor Vince quotes Aristotle a few too many times in this sermon... but by the end, he weaves a tale of hoping even when it feels ridiculous to do so. He reminds us that sometimes, it's actually quite probable that improbable things will happen.

In his sermon this week, Pastor Vince preaches on the connection between grief and imagination, and how they are more intertwined than one might think.

In his sermon this week, Pastor Vince preaches on the powers that be always wanting to narrow our vision of whats possible. He reminds us that God calls us to prophetic imaginations and proposes alternative futures.